The opportunities at Twitter are gigantic, says billionaire investor Ron Baron — Transcript

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1. 0:00well speaking of Twitter there's an
2. 0:02article on the New York Times today that
3. 0:03suggests layoffs are going to begin
4. 0:05starting today and it's going to be
5. 0:08layoffs of around 3 000 or so people
6. 0:10maybe up to 50 percent of the staff
7. 0:12there you're an investor I thought I
8. 0:13said 3 700 3700 75 7500 employees and uh
9. 0:20there's a lot of people there that
10. 0:21aren't very productive they work from
11. 0:23home
12. 0:24they haven't written very much code
13. 0:27you know I I didn't I'm not the expert
14. 0:30in Twitter yet I will be in a couple
15. 0:33years maybe sooner than that but I'm not
16. 0:35yet
17. 0:36and uh and and I think that the first
18. 0:42thing you got to do is Right Size the
19. 0:43business and then the opportunities they
20. 0:45have are gigantic this is the place
21. 0:48where you have content it's other places
22. 0:51you go to look at people's faces and
23. 0:52their kids and stuff here you go to have
24. 0:54he wants to have a digital Town Hall
25. 0:56digital Town Center you know where you
26. 0:58can debate but you have to make sure
27. 1:00that you moderate and you don't have
28. 1:02hate speech on there and you don't have
29. 1:04there was something that was published a
30. 1:06couple days ago that said in the first
31. 1:08time as soon as you took it over there
32. 1:10were 50 000 treats in two or three days
33. 1:14with using the n-word yes or using
34. 1:17anti-semitic tropes in in two or three
35. 1:21days there were 300 accounts so 300
36. 1:24accounts they were troll accounts
37. 1:26exactly yeah and so you don't want that
38. 1:29you want to have a verification of
39. 1:31accounts for eight dollars a person and
40. 1:33then you can verify and then they can
41. 1:34amplify your your uh uh what you want to
42. 1:37say and who you can reach I mean he has
43. 1:40made the statement to probably to
44. 1:42assuage advertisers that he doesn't want
45. 1:45it to be a hellscape and he's been clear
46. 1:47about that but I think there are
47. 1:49advertisers who have questions and
48. 1:51concerns there was another story today I
49. 1:52don't know if it was the Wall Street
50. 1:53Journal that just talked about General
51. 1:55Mills the Volkswagen a lot of different
52. 1:58companies potentially L'Oreal that are
53. 2:01looking at Mondelez and Pfizer those are
54. 2:03some of the other ones that are pausing
55. 2:04their ads on Twitter right now do you
56. 2:06think that he's going to run it in a way
57. 2:08that will bring those advertisers back
58. 2:10and convince them that this is where
59. 2:12they want to be I do but I think that
60. 2:14this is not just about money
61. 2:16and when when you're talking about
62. 2:19someone who's worth
63. 2:21whatever he's worth and uh you're going
64. 2:24to be worth multiples of that in the
65. 2:26future trillions
66. 2:27trillions
67. 2:29and uh and you're talking about 20 20
68. 2:32billion dollars
69. 2:34I'm to everyone it's in the world it's a
70. 2:36lot of money but for him it's not
71. 2:39relevant what he's doing this is not his
72. 2:42goal is not just to make a huge amount
73. 2:43of money his goal is to help democracy
74. 2:46and you help democracy you don't help
75. 2:48democracy and and he says the only way
76. 2:51this works is that if a lot of speech
77. 2:55that takes place there is stuff that he
78. 2:57doesn't like he says you don't want to
79. 2:59hear it on the other hand that's what
80. 3:01democracy is you argue about things but
81. 3:03how do you decide between free speech
82. 3:04and hate speech that's the trick so
83. 3:06that's an easy thing to do now if you
84. 3:07think about what Tick Tock does The Tick
85. 3:10Tock can you know if you move your arm a
86. 3:12certain way they know what you want to
87. 3:13watch right and they know who you are
88. 3:15and if they watch enough things then
89. 3:16they know more about you than you know
90. 3:18about yourself and more in your life
91. 3:20they know everything but just moving and
92. 3:22for him to think about it this guy sends
93. 3:25up rockets and brings them back and
94. 3:27lands them right how could he not have
95. 3:29software that can determine from the
96. 3:31words that are being used and from the
97. 3:33content that people are watching they
98. 3:36know more about everyone than anyone
99. 3:37else because of content so they know all
100. 3:39this and they and therefore they should
101. 3:41be able to figure out with software how
102. 3:44to moderate and to prevent this hate
103. 3:46stuff and anti-semitic things and and
104. 3:49using n-word they should not be allowed
105. 3:51to do those things and and and he said
106. 3:53even the sanctity of elections yeah and
107. 3:56so here if everyone says it's true how
108. 3:58do you avoid disinformation they should
109. 4:00be able to do that with software
110. 4:02Shepard Smith here thanks for watching
111. 4:04CNBC on YouTube